Koozå
Encyclopedia
Koozå is a touring circus production by Cirque du Soleil
which premiered in Montréal
, Canada
, in 2007. The show was written and directed by David Shiner
, who had previously worked as a clown in Cirque du Soleil's production of Nouvelle Expérience
. His experience as a clown and his past work with Switzerland's Circus Knie
and Germany's Circus Roncalli
informed his work on Koozå.
, the artists and staff of Koozå were temporarily relocated to Macau
where they continued training at Cirque du Soleil's resident show Zaia
. The major benefit of relocating there is that the team is able to partner with the crews of Zed
(which was also relocated from Japan) and Zaia at the Macau training facilities. Shows running from March 11 through April 9 were cancelled. The troupe returned and started performances again after facility management had conducted a thorough safety inspection.
: red, white, and gold. Koozås costumes are designed from the point of view of a character called the Innocent. The Innocent's costume itself has horizontal stripes and is very ill-fitted, with sleeves much too long and pant legs much too short, illustrating his childlike naïvety. The other main character, the Trickster, is impeccably dressed, with the same colored stripes as the Innocent, yet his are vertical. In fact, the stripes are aligned to such a degree that the lines run directly in line from headpiece to shoe. Much detail was put into piecing the wool-lycra blend pieces together to show the Trickster's mischievous and all-powerful character.
Inspiration for the characters was drawn from graphic novel
s and comic book
s, Gustav Klimt
paintings, as well as Indian and Eastern European art. As Koozå is dreamt of by the Innocent, many of the costumes are designed to impress the audience with ideas of children's toys, soldiers, and children's stories. Many of the costumes are also designed to metamorphose. For example, the Charivari
performers have controls at their fingertips that will turn their costumes from gold to red in the blink of an eye. These metamorphosis effects were inspired by quick-change
artists and magicians.
Koozå has more than 175 costumes and 160 hats. Counting all of the shoes, props, wigs and such, the total number of wardrobe pieces is 1,080.
, pop music
, 1970s funk
, orchestral music, and film scores from the 1940s and 1950s. Below is a list of the tracks featured on the CD, which was released on June 24, 2008. The items in parentheses indicate the related act.
Cirque du Soleil released a film production of Koozå in September 2008. The film was directed by Mario Janelle and produced by Jacques Méthé. It was shot using eight high-definition cameras on location in Toronto, Canada.
Europe North America South and Central Americas Asia/Pacific Oceania Africa
Québec, QC - From 5 July 2007 to 29 July 2007
Toronto, ON - From 9 August 2007 to 21 October 2007
San Francisco, CA - From 16 November 2007 to 20 January 2008
Hartford, CT - From 1 April 2008 to 27 April 2008
Philadelphia, PA - From 8 May 2008 to 15 June 2008
Chicago, IL - From 26 June 2008 to 24 August 2008
Boston, MA - From 5 September 2008 to 19 October 2008
Washington, DC - From 30 October 2008 to 14 December 2008
Baltimore, MD - From 12 March 2009 to 5 April 2009
New York, NY - From 16 April 2009 to 21 June 2009
Minneapolis, MN - From 3 July 2009 to 9 August 2009
Denver, CO - From 20 August 2009 to 4 October 2009
Santa Monica, CA - From 16 October 2009 to 20 December 2009
San Diego, CA - From 25 February 2010 to 28 March 2010
Portland, OR - From 9 April 2010 to 23 May 2010
Seattle, WA - From 3 June 2010 to 11 July 2010
Vancouver, BC - From 22 July 2010 to 5 September 2010
Calgary, AB - From 16 September 2010 to 24 October 2010
Miami, FL - From 12 November 2010 to 2 January 2011
Osaka, JP - From 4 August 2011 to 6 November 2011
Nagoya, JP - From 23 November 2011 to 22 January 2012
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
which premiered in Montréal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, in 2007. The show was written and directed by David Shiner
David Shiner (clown)
David Shiner is an American actor, clown, playwright and theater director.Shiner was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Francis Shiner, a computer programmer, and a homemaker mother. The lanky Shiner, usually donning a small dunce cap, started as a street mime, first in Colorado, and later...
, who had previously worked as a clown in Cirque du Soleil's production of Nouvelle Expérience
Nouvelle Experience
Nouvelle Expérience was Cirque du Soleil's fourth touring circus show, which premiered in 1990. The show's tour ended in 1993 in The Mirage parking lot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 1.3 million people saw the production during its 3½-year run.-Cast:...
. His experience as a clown and his past work with Switzerland's Circus Knie
Circus Knie
Circus Knie is the largest circus of Switzerland, based in Rapperswil.The circus was founded in 1803 by the Knie family and has existed in its present form since 1919 when it changed from an open arena to a covered tent. The circus has been long famous for its animals and now operates a zoo and a...
and Germany's Circus Roncalli
Circus Roncalli
Circus Roncalli is a German circus founded in 1976 by Bernhard Paul and André Heller. According to Bernhard Paul, the name was inspired by a film script of his fellow Austrian Peter Hajek, "Sarah Roncalli, Tochter des Mondes"...
informed his work on Koozå.
History
Due to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
, the artists and staff of Koozå were temporarily relocated to Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
where they continued training at Cirque du Soleil's resident show Zaia
Zaia
Zaia is a Cirque du Soleil stage production based at The Venetian Macao on the Cotai Strip in Macau. The 90-minute show opened in August 2008 and brings together 75 high-calibre artists from around the world. Zaia is Cirque du Soleil's first resident show in Asia and is directed by Neilson...
. The major benefit of relocating there is that the team is able to partner with the crews of Zed
Zed (Cirque du Soleil)
Zed is Cirque du Soleil's second resident show in Asia. It premiered on October 1, 2008 at the Cirque du Soleil Theater, Tokyo Disney Resort, in Tokyo, Japan. Inspiration for Zed was taken from the Tarot and its Arcana; the main character Zed represents humanity...
(which was also relocated from Japan) and Zaia at the Macau training facilities. Shows running from March 11 through April 9 were cancelled. The troupe returned and started performances again after facility management had conducted a thorough safety inspection.
Set and technical information
Stéphane Roy designed Koozås stage to evoke a public square that changes into a circus ring. The sight lines for the audience is quite grand, up to 260 degrees. The stage has one major component, a traveling tower dubbed the "bataclan." The decoration for the bataclan is inspired by Hindu culture, Pakistani buses and Indian jewelry. The large fabric structure behind the bataclan is organic in nature, as it's printed with a motif resembling the internal structure of leaves. As for the stage itself, the surface is decorated to look like the night sky. The center ring itself has a graphic representation of the night sky in Montréal the day which the show premiered.Cast
Although there are many performers in Koozå, there are seven primary characters who are central to the narrative.- Trickster: Created the world that is Koozå for the Innocent.
- Innocent: Is eager to learn about the world he is in, yet discovers many unexpected things.
- King: Plays the king of fools, and is seen with his sidekicks, the clowns.
- Clowns: The two court clowns are the King's footmen.
- Pickpocket: Provides humor throughout the performance, and performs a mini-act of pickpocketing an audience member.
- Heimloss: Is in charge of all the mechanical machinery in Koozå.
- Bad dog: The dog is not trained at all, but does become drawn to the Innocent and becomes his companion.
Acts
Koozå has ten acrobatic acts, supplemented by other minor acts that develop the storyline.- Balancing on chairs
- Charivari
- Contortion
- Hand to hand
- High wire
- Hoops manipulation
- Solo trapeze
- Teeterboard
- Unicycle duo
- Wheel of deathWheel of death (Space wheel)The Wheel of Death, in the context of acrobatic circus arts, is a large rotating apparatus on which performers carry out synchronized acrobatic skills. The "wheel" is actually a large space frame beam with hooped tracks at either end, within which the performers can stand. As the performers run...
Costumes
Reflecting Cirque du Soleil's return to more traditional circus arts with clowning and acrobatics, Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt (costume designer) chose a color palette more in line with traditional circus and burlesqueBurlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
: red, white, and gold. Koozås costumes are designed from the point of view of a character called the Innocent. The Innocent's costume itself has horizontal stripes and is very ill-fitted, with sleeves much too long and pant legs much too short, illustrating his childlike naïvety. The other main character, the Trickster, is impeccably dressed, with the same colored stripes as the Innocent, yet his are vertical. In fact, the stripes are aligned to such a degree that the lines run directly in line from headpiece to shoe. Much detail was put into piecing the wool-lycra blend pieces together to show the Trickster's mischievous and all-powerful character.
Inspiration for the characters was drawn from graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s and comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
paintings, as well as Indian and Eastern European art. As Koozå is dreamt of by the Innocent, many of the costumes are designed to impress the audience with ideas of children's toys, soldiers, and children's stories. Many of the costumes are also designed to metamorphose. For example, the Charivari
Charivari
Charivari is the term for a French folk custom in which the community gave a noisy, discordant mock serenade, also pounding on pots and pans, at the home of newlyweds. The loud, public ritual evolved to a form of social coercion, for instance, to force an as-yet-unmarried couple to wed...
performers have controls at their fingertips that will turn their costumes from gold to red in the blink of an eye. These metamorphosis effects were inspired by quick-change
Quick-change
Quick-change is a performance style in which a performer or magician changes quickly within seconds from one costume into another costume in front of the audience.-Modern Quick-Change Artists:...
artists and magicians.
Koozå has more than 175 costumes and 160 hats. Counting all of the shoes, props, wigs and such, the total number of wardrobe pieces is 1,080.
Music
Composed by Jean-François Côté, the show's music was inspired by the music of IndiaMusic of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
, pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, 1970s funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, orchestral music, and film scores from the 1940s and 1950s. Below is a list of the tracks featured on the CD, which was released on June 24, 2008. The items in parentheses indicate the related act.
- Koozå Dance (Skeleton dance)
- Superstar I (Juggling)
- L'innocent (Charivari, pt 1)
- Royaume (Charivari, pt 2)
- Junoon (Contortion)
- Alambre Alto (High wire)
- 16-Papillon (Solo trapeze)
- Pearl (Unicycle duo)
- Cabaret Sata (Unicycle duo)
- Aankh Micholi (Pickpocket)
- Diables (Wheel of death, pt 1)
- El Péndulo de la Muerte (Wheel of death, pt 2)
- Petit-Jaune (Opening)
- Superstar II (Juggling)
- Imposteur (Transition to high wire)
- Prarthana (Balancing on chairs, pt 1)
- Don't be Afraid (Balancing on chairs, pt 2)
- Hum Jaisa Na Dekha (Teeterboard)
Filmography
A Thrilling Ride through Koozå was the first film release related to Cirque du Soleil's show, Koozå. This short documentary was directed by Roger Cantin and released in September 2007. It was shot on location in Montréal, Canada.Cirque du Soleil released a film production of Koozå in September 2008. The film was directed by Mario Janelle and produced by Jacques Méthé. It was shot using eight high-definition cameras on location in Toronto, Canada.
Tour
The following colorboxes indicate the region of each performance:Europe North America South and Central Americas Asia/Pacific Oceania Africa
2007 schedule
Montréal, QC - From 19 April 2007 to 24 June 2007 (show première)Québec, QC - From 5 July 2007 to 29 July 2007
Toronto, ON - From 9 August 2007 to 21 October 2007
San Francisco, CA - From 16 November 2007 to 20 January 2008
2008 schedule
San Jose, CA - From 31 January 2008 to 16 March 2008Hartford, CT - From 1 April 2008 to 27 April 2008
Philadelphia, PA - From 8 May 2008 to 15 June 2008
Chicago, IL - From 26 June 2008 to 24 August 2008
Boston, MA - From 5 September 2008 to 19 October 2008
Washington, DC - From 30 October 2008 to 14 December 2008
2009 schedule
Atlanta, GA - From 2 January 2009 to 1 March 2009Baltimore, MD - From 12 March 2009 to 5 April 2009
New York, NY - From 16 April 2009 to 21 June 2009
Minneapolis, MN - From 3 July 2009 to 9 August 2009
Denver, CO - From 20 August 2009 to 4 October 2009
Santa Monica, CA - From 16 October 2009 to 20 December 2009
2010 schedule
Irvine, CA - From 8 January 2010 to 14 February 2010San Diego, CA - From 25 February 2010 to 28 March 2010
Portland, OR - From 9 April 2010 to 23 May 2010
Seattle, WA - From 3 June 2010 to 11 July 2010
Vancouver, BC - From 22 July 2010 to 5 September 2010
Calgary, AB - From 16 September 2010 to 24 October 2010
Miami, FL - From 12 November 2010 to 2 January 2011
2011 schedule
Tokyo, JP - From 2 February 2011 to 18 July 2011Osaka, JP - From 4 August 2011 to 6 November 2011
Nagoya, JP - From 23 November 2011 to 22 January 2012